The United States Postal Service (USPS) is an independent government agency that provides mail delivery and other services to the public. The USPS is widely recognized as a safe and reliable means for sending and receiving mail and other items. With the advent and steady growth of electronic mail and electronic commerce, the physical mail stream will increasingly be utilized for sending and receiving packages and other items. In an effort to ensure that mail is delivered not only to the right address, but also into the right hands, the USPS offers tracking of the mailed item in conjunction with many special service options.
Tracking of a mailed item may provide routing information allowing an item to be sent from point A to point B. Tracking may also provide information such as, for example, where the item came from, who prepared the item, when the item was prepared, or where the item is in the item delivery system. Tracking is typically accomplished by affixing a scannable label (e.g., a barcode) to the mailed item and scanning the label at specific checkpoints along a delivery route. The final checkpoint in the route may be the point of delivery, when the mail carrier scans the mailed item just prior to delivery of the mailed item to the recipient.
The special service options may include services such as, for example, delivery confirmation, signature confirmation, certified mail, registered mail, and others. These special service options may provide an added level of security by requiring a signature from the person who accepts the delivery. The signature may be co-located on an adhesive label with the tracking information described above.
During the final step of the tracking process described above, the recipient's signature and the tracking information of the mailed item, may both be scanned. Unfortunately, scanning of a signature can be difficult. In particular, depending on the character of the signature and its orientation, alignment and resolution of the scanned signature may be problematic.
It is accordingly a primary object of this invention to provide a method and apparatus that improves alignment and resolution of a scanned signature.